Yesterday’s post gives me the opportunity to link you to a couple of articles that have been put forth in the last weeks…
First, another man’s “take” (from the blog “Eastern Approaches”) but again worthy of consideration and information… CLICK HERE to read “Hungary and Britain”
Next, from the New York Times on a new opera with a political punch… CLICK HERE
Thoughtful comments are welcome…
Filed under culture, things Central European
This is a guest post and is one man’s “take” (author will remain anonymous, used with permission) but I thought it useful and thought provoking…
Today, October 23, is a Hungarian national holiday. It is the 57th anniversary of their uprising against the Russians in 1956, which was the first forceful opposition to the Soviet Union’s domination of Eastern Europe after World War II. After a couple of startling weeks of freedom from oppression, it was crushed by the Red Army. Hungarians do not celebrate, they COMMEMORATE the students, workers, and ordinary people who fought against Russian tanks with homemade or confiscated weapons. From a population of 10 million people, a couple thousand were killed. Tens of thousands were wounded. Hundreds were afterwards executed or deported to Siberia. Two hundred thousand more escaped to the West.
Unfortunately, all these years after the Revolution, and over 20 years since the change from one-party rule to democracy, talented and motivated Hungarians still want to leave the country. The political, social, and economic systems still have debilitating problems, many of them self-inflicted.
How will this change? Political power will not do it; the political elites are insulated from the public. Financial power will not do it; the common people do not command enough of the money, and this is a relatively poor nation. Social power will not do it; the cultural fabric is not strong enough; Hungarians do not know how to be good neighbors to each other. The only power remaining is the power of God in the churches, but most of the churches are unfruitful. They need revival as much as their country needs reform. But first the churches must get off their own agenda, turn from their self-centered ways, and think beyond their walls (God-style!).
+ Please pray that believers will examine themselves, realize their persistent sins, and turn away from self-centeredness, inconsequential living, and lack of faith. Please pray that passages like 2 Chronicles 7:14 and Daniel 9:4-19 will lead to repentance (change!) and awakening (hope!) instead of regret and despair (the normal Hungarian result).
+ Please pray that believers and churches in Hungary will LIVE IN JESUS and start to MAKE A DIFFERENCE in the lives of their neighbors and neighborhoods —instead of being disregarded as people who have trouble distinguishing real life from fairy tales.
+ Please pray that we followers of Jesus do our own confession, repentance, and growth in God. Please pray that God the Holy Spirit will enable us to be confident witnesses of the power of God among us: Emmanuel, Jesus the Messiah.
Now, you may not agree with all that this writer said, but I think that his observations are worthy of consideration, and perhaps comment…
a couple of weeks ago, I posted some thoughts about planting seeds HERE… I did NOT dig up the seeds to check on their progress…
today: a progress report on the spinach seedlings…
I was excited to start “Gospel Centered Life”* with another friend on Tuesday. I always look forward to the journey through those 9 lessons because, even after going through it 30+ times, I am always drawn back to God.
At the beginning, we consider the concept of “shrinking the cross.” I had a new insight on that concept this morning… but I need to give a bit of background first.
The basis of these 9 conversations is the fact that we need to have a “growing awareness of our sinfulness” and a “growing awareness of God’s holiness.” If this is the case, the cross is growing in our awareness and therefore the importance of Jesus’ work gets larger and larger as time goes by…
If our awareness of these two is not growing, we may have plateaued… then we “shrink the cross.” The cross is not looming larger in our lives, it is smaller or stagnant (which, it seems to me, if not growing, is shrinking)…
This morning, I was praying and thinking about what it means to “shrink the cross” (as I see that I have been doing of late) and this is what occurred to me:
When my awareness of God has shrunk and my awareness of my sinfulness has shrunk, the cross is not as large as it was… maybe what is really going on is that as I have drifted way from God, I have tried to climb up on the cross and become the Savior.
Who are we trying to save anyway?
*This is an incredible 9 week journey published by World Harvest Mission LEARN MORE
I talk about rest a lot. The point I am often trying to make is that followers of Jesus need to rest in Him. We need to dwell in Him. Abide in Him, climbing into God’s lap is where it happens.
Today, in a great conversation with a brother in which we talked about a lot of cool stuff, two things came up. Those two things are prayer and effort.
Jesus often went away to pray, to invest time with His Heavenly Father.
If we do this, we will find His strength and wisdom, His mind to go out and do His will.
Which brings me to the word effort.
During this conversation we began talking about Dallas Willard’s book The Great Omission. I grabbed my copy and read something like this: Effort is not the problem, earning is. See, to serve God takes effort. But to exert effort to try to earn favor (whether God’s or human’s favor – to me they are both very problematic) is going down a dead end.
The wise sequence is to trust and rest in God, get His will, wisdom and power, and then our effort can bring God glory. Otherwise, we tend to bring glory to ourselves, an unhealthy and unhelpful enterprise.
Filed under culture
There is a pretty thought provoking article in the Washington Post. I got to it when I saw this Tweet: “When your identity is tied up in your career, something like the shutdown can make you rethink a few things” READ Post article here and then ask yourself, what is MY identity based on? can I lose that basis? If so then where am I?
CSLewis said not to base our happiness on something we can lose. Forget happiness, let’s not base our identity on what the heck we DO (that includes ESPECIALLY means us pastor types) and can lose!
Filed under culture
kingdom travelin' 